“Polish women?” repeated Mitya, perfectly ecstatic.
Kalganov was well aware of Mitya’s attitude to Grushenka, and he guessed about the Pole, too, but that did not so much interest him, perhaps did not interest him at all; what he was interested in was Maximov. He had come here with Maximov by chance, and he met the Poles here at the inn for the first time in his life. Grushenka he knew before, and had once been with some one to see her; but she had not taken to him. But here she looked at him very affectionately: before Mitya’s arrival, she had been making much of him, but he seemed somehow to be unmoved by it. He was a boy, not over twenty, dressed like a dandy, with a very charming fair‐ skinned face, and splendid thick, fair hair. From his fair face looked out beautiful pale blue eyes, with an intelligent and sometimes even deep expression, beyond his age indeed, although the young man sometimes looked and talked quite like a child, and was not at all ashamed of it, even when he was aware of it himself. As a rule he was very willful, even capricious, though always friendly. Sometimes there was something fixed and obstinate in his expression. He would look at you and listen, seeming all the while to be persistently dreaming over something else. Often he was listless and lazy, at other times he would grow excited, sometimes, apparently, over the most trivial matters.
“Only imagine, I’ve been taking him about with me for the last four days,” he went on, indolently drawling his words, quite naturally though, without the slightest affectation. “Ever since your brother, do you remember, shoved him off the carriage and sent him flying. That made me take an interest in him at the time, and I took him into the country, but he keeps talking such rot I’m ashamed to be with him. I’m taking him back.”
“The gentleman has not seen Polish ladies, and says what is impossible,” the Pole with the pipe observed to Maximov.
He spoke Russian fairly well, much better, anyway, than he pretended. If he used Russian words, he always distorted them into a Polish form.
“But I was married to a Polish lady myself,” tittered Maximov.
“But did you serve in the cavalry? You were talking about the cavalry. Were you a cavalry officer?” put in Kalganov at once.
“Was he a cavalry officer indeed? Ha ha!” cried Mitya, listening eagerly, and turning his inquiring eyes to each as he spoke, as though there were no knowing what he might hear from each.
“No, you see,” Maximov turned to him. “What I mean is that those pretty Polish ladies ... when they danced the mazurka with our Uhlans ... when one of them dances a mazurka with a Uhlan she jumps on his knee like a kitten ... a little white one ... and the pan‐father and pan‐mother look on and allow it.... They allow it ... and next day the Uhlan comes and offers her his hand.... That’s how it is ... offers her his hand, he he!” Maximov ended, tittering.
“The pan is a lajdak!” the tall Pole on the chair growled suddenly and crossed one leg over the other. Mitya’s eye was caught by his huge greased boot, with its thick, dirty sole. The dress of both the Poles looked rather greasy.